The Democratic primary in the 132nd House District pits a 64-year-old lawyer — whose sign has made him perhaps the area's most prominent liberal — against a 30-year-old executive at a local nonprofit.

Bob Sweere says his time as an attorney, as well as his pragmatic approach to what Democrats can hope to accomplish in a Republican-controlled legislature, are two reasons voters should vote for him on Aug. 2. He is focusing his campaign on several issues he believes can win Republican votes.

"If we're gonna get anything done in Jefferson City at all as Democrats, we have to come up with some new ideas that the Republicans haven't already chosen sides to oppose," he said.

Opponent Crystal Quade, the director of chapter services at area nonprofit Care To Learn, says her background — which includes growing up in a struggling family — means she is the better choice to represent a district that can be described as economically disadvantaged.

"I feel like we won't get the real change that we need, especially for places like this, until we have everybody sitting at the table," she said. "What I feel like is not in Jefferson City right now is the perspective of regular, working-class people, who know what it's like to be the first in your family to graduate, and to go to college for the first time, and the struggles that come alongside that."

The decision to run

In an interview with the News-Leader this month, Quade said she graduated with a degree in social work from Missouri State University in 2008. In her final semester, she interned in the office of Rep. Charlie Norr, who currently represents the 132nd District but is ineligible to run again due to term limits.

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Crystal Quade, who is running in the 132nd House District Democratic primary, canvases a neighborhood in her district on Thursday, July 21, 2016.(Photo: Andrew Jansen/News-Leader)

Some of what Quade saw in Jefferson City disappointed her.

"I was in the chamber during debate one time, and there were a handful of representatives in the room when they were debating something, and then they rang the bell and everybody ran in and voted right down party lines," she said. "And everybody left again, and they went on to the next bill. It was a very disheartening experience, to see how unengaged some of our officials were across the state."

"Really, for me, it was that moment when I decided to dig in and get involved in the process, versus most young people at the time just giving up," she said.

Quade said she was the first person in her immediate family to graduate high school, let alone college. After graduating from Missouri State, she worked in Sen. Claire McCaskill's Springfield office, as well as for the Community Blood Center of the Ozarks and Organizing for America, before joining Care To Learn.

In a separate interview with the News-Leader this month, Sweere said he moved to Springfield in 1979, taking a job as assistant prosecuting attorney for Greene County. In 1981, he moved to private practice.

About five years ago, Sweere decided to use the sign outside his law office on National Avenue to highlight his views and quips regarding politically charged issues, both local and national.

"Free my nips from Justin's lips," he wrote last August, after Springfield City Councilman Justin Burnett pushed changes to the city's indecent exposure ordinance.

"How's it feel to finally have a heart, Dick?" he wrote in 2012, after former Vice President Dick Cheney underwent a heart transplant.

Sweere said the positive feedback he's received to messages on the sign is one of the reasons he decided to run for office.

"Since I had thoughts and people tended to agree with them, I thought maybe I can do some good and translate those thoughts into action," he said. "Also, having lawyered for 40 years, it's nice to take those skills I have and apply them in a different but somewhat related arena."

Their thoughts on the issues

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Springfield attorney Bob Sweere stands in front of his law firm's sign in 2012. The message behind him was put up amid news that former Vice President Dick Cheney had underwent a heart transplant.(Photo: News-Leader File Photo)

Sweere believes Missouri needs a "death with dignity" law, which would allow people with chronic illnesses to control when they die. He said he became convinced of the need for such legislation as he watched his mother die, with a days-long gap between her brain giving out and the rest of her body.

"In Missouri, we treat our pets with more respect than we treat our dying parents," he said.

Sweere believes simple possession and distribution of marijuana should be decriminalized, on the justification that it is a waste of law enforcement resources. Things like driving while stoned would remain illegal, Sweere said, along with commercial production and distribution.

"If you've got a pot farm and you've got it guarded with AK-47s or whatever they do to protect those things, that should continue to be a crime until the people of Missouri decide that we're going to legalize it," he said. "But all this other stuff, that should just go by the bye."

Third, Sweere wants to overhaul Missouri's "fake" homestead law in order to protect homeowners, he said. Under current state law, creditors — such as a credit card company or a health care system — can force the sale of a debtor's home, with debtors receiving $15,000 of the proceeds, regardless of how much home equity they had acquired. Sweere wants to see Missouri join the eight states that outlaw those sales.

"Under my proposal, the only person who could take your home is the person to whom you have voluntarily mortgaged it, and then only if you don't pay the mortgage," he said.

In his interview this month, Sweere said he had added a fourth main issue. He believes Missouri's minimum wage "should go up to $10 in a heartbeat, and within a reasonable time it should go up to $15."

Quade, meanwhile, told the News-Leader she believes "it is very important we move past the traditional political 'these are the things I'm going to do,' because so many of the bills we have in Missouri affect each other."

For example, she said, "we need to do things like living wages" — but be aware of what has been dubbed the "cliff effect," in which low-income individuals sometimes find that earning more makes them ineligible for welfare programs.

In response to Sweere's platform, Quade said she doesn't think death with dignity, pot decriminalization and the homestead law are the issues "that are most affecting this district."

"As you probably know, this district is a very low-income, very transient area, and I don't know those are the most pressing to the people specifically who live here," she said.

Sweere, meanwhile, said it is critical for a Democrat going to Jefferson City to focus on issues that Republicans haven't already decided to oppose.

"Crystal and I are both for expanding Medicaid, Crystal and I are both for making things easier for working families in some way, making health care more affordable, all that stuff that are generic Democratic issues ... But none of those things that the Republicans have already chosen sides on are going to pass," Sweere said.

The differences between them

Quade said she believes her life experience allows her to best represent the district.

"The big difference, in my opinion, between Bob and I is that I bring experience to the table that I think truly reflects the folks who live here," she said.

Sweere cited his time as an attorney as the reason he's the best choice to represent the district.

Ninety percent of the cases he works on end up with settlements, he said, which means that he's able to bring together two parties that initially have opposing viewpoints. And most attorneys in southwest Missouri, he said, are Republicans.

"I know how to deal with Republicans, because I deal with Republicans every day," Sweere said. "How do you accomplish things in the legislature? You accomplish things by establishing relationships with people who you disagree with."

The two also differed when asked to assess Norr, the Democrat who has represented the district for eight of the last 10 years. Quade said she believes Norr has done a great job representing the people.

Norr told the News-Leader he doesn't plan to endorse in the primary, and that he is planning to run for the Missouri Senate in 2018.

Quade is endorsed by a number of statewide and local organizations, including the Missouri National Education Association, Missouri National Organization for Women and the Missouri Teamsters.

Sweere said he has not been actively pursuing endorsements but noted that his campaign's required financial disclosures indicate he has received donations from numerous Springfield-area attorneys.

Through the end of June, Quade's campaign had raised $41,466.74, compared to Sweere's $10,854.

That YouTube video

A late June post on the website of Bottle Magazine — "a different kind of publication, written by women for everyone about everything" — highlighted remarks made by a man introducing Bob Sweere at his June campaignlaunch party.

During his remarks, which were posted on YouTube, the man — identified by Sweere as Andy Hodges — referred to Quade as “a nice, young girl who just had a baby, and she wants to be state rep." Jacqui Oesterblad, the author of the Bottle Magazine post, called the comment sexist and questioned how Sweere could stand by and allow it.

Asked about the characterization this month, Quade said the comment was not an issue to her and that she "would prefer we talk about our qualifications." But female candidates do encounter sexism, she said.

"My first conversation with a lot of even Democrats is 'What about your children?' — things that, in my opinion, male candidates may not have to deal with," she said. "We have a lot of elected officials in Springfield right now who have very young children, and it's never been a topic of conversation. I think it's important that we're continuing that conversation, in all honesty, because it is real."

"When I took my husband on filing day in Jeff City, everybody was asking him what he was running for, and he'd have to continuously say, 'No, it's my wife,'" Quade said.

When Sweere was asked about the remark, he said he wanted an apology, saying Quade had violated their pledge to each other to not go negative while campaigning.

"She sent a spy into my kickoff event and had a spy videotape what took place," he said. "So wherever that came from, that goes back to Crystal. She did it. And to me, she owes me an apology for taping that without permission."

Quade, in response, said she did not know who took the video of Sweere's launch party. An intern working with her did attend, she said, just as he's attended the events of other local Democrats, but did not post the video.

"I think it's unfortunate that he thinks that," Quade said, adding that she also does not know Jacqui Oesterblad.

Hodges did not respond to a request for comment.

"He is not a sexist," Sweere said. "I am not a sexist."

"The inference that they want to draw from what my friend said is just too much of a stretch to even justify responding to," Sweere continued.